What I love about this space is that if you peek into one corner of a blog, you can shed light on a whole program of endeavours. Such is the case with this post, which describes a preview of Robot Heart Stories (R<3S), "a 10-day transmedia learning project in which two classrooms in underserved neighborhoods in Montreal (French speaking) and Los Angeles (English speaking) used collaboration and creative problem solving to help a lost robot navigate across North America." This takes us into a diversion looking at the concept of transmedia storytelling, "the best approach to tell a particular story to a particular audience in a particular context depending on the particular resources available to particular producers." The context was the recent DIY Days conference, and Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear's DIY Media: Creating, Sharing and Learning with New Technologies, described as "a rich book on DIY culture and what it might contribute to reframing contemporary educational practices and pedagogy. (See part one and part two of their recent interview with Jenkins on the book's implications and core themes.)"

Marshall McLuhan once famously said that a light bulb is a type of media. This post looks at the claim that lighting can have an impact on learning outcomes. I would believe it - put me in a dark room with no sunlight and trees, and I wilt. Mike in New Zealand writes, "'The Education Ministry's website says evidence suggests learning outcomes improve in spaces that have daylight as the main source of lighting.' So embrace classroom 'windows' (the first time a Mac guy like me has said that) and don't think that the Philips Company is going to lift student achievement any more than an interactive whiteboard company will." Fair enough. The blog post has a pretty good soundtrack, too.

More on the whole idea of our lives being recorded by Facebook or other social networks. Bob Sprankle spends some time imagining the various ways data could be collected. For example, "what if each student wore some type of sensor and a teacher could actually identify how often he/she spent time with each student." Or "moving into collecting data on which students get called on most frequently." The key question, though, is to what use the data would be put. It could be invaluable to a teacher seeking to improve his or her own performance, or to a student looking to increase his or her knowledge. Or it could be used as a weapon by parents or administrators seeking to punish teachers, or by teachers as a means to support disciplinary action against children.

Short summary of an introductory webinar hosted by Pearson to introduce its new cloud-based OpenClass learning management system (LMS). Worlfgang Greller relates assurances by Pearson that users will not be required to purchase Pearson textbooks. But questions on the enterprise nature of the tool - whether it would support LDAP-based logins, for example - were not clearly ansered. Greller writes, "My impression was that the tool, or at least the webinar demo, was very much geared toward individual teachers deciding to hop into the cloud with their classes." And he notes, "This is not normally permissible in institutions."

I've been thinking a lot recently about whether I would continue to exist if I were not on social networks. It's easy - as this article notes - to quit a social network in a blaze of glory, especially if there's somewhere else to go. If I don't tweet about quitting Facebook, does it really happen? More seriously, while Michael Erard may write "I did tweet the observation that Facebook isn’t going to pay you a pension or 401k for all the time you spent there" I am wondering whether I would have a career without social networks - or at least online activities. Not that anyone should worry - I can't imagine not writing, I can't imagine not being online. But I do seriously want to reduce my reliance on social networks. And if I cease to exist - well, so be it, I guess.

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